Structure in a garden, whether formal or informal, symmetrical, or asymmetrical, visually subtle or strong, is a very important element of garden-making. A structure implies some element that is enduring. The most elaborate sand castle will wash away with high tide. Concrete that is not steel reinforced can crack. A house of cards can be blown over. Regularly, certain elements in my garden are blown over. The annuals last but one season. The hyssop peters out. Roses and lilacs without regular maintenance age, and fade. But those plants that provide structure-the evergreens, and the trees, endure, and grow to a great age. This boxwood rectangle with its boxwood balls at the corners was planted in 1997. It will be but 14 years old this year, but it has endured many changes of season, fungus, leaf miners, and heavy pruning. It provides structure to this garden-the rest of which changes every season. Tulips in the spring, annuals in the summer-the fall and winter have a still different look. The boxwood is a living architectural, structural, element. It provides the garden with a framework that makes a home for every other element. In 2005, a steel gloriette arrived from France; you see it pictured here. Still stuck in the roof, the gnarled remains of a giant wisteria. Like the wisteria and its gloriette, the spring tulips have a structural picture frame of boxwood that celebrate them.

A gloriette provides shelter-as does a house for a family, a library for a reader, a road for a traveller, or a grocery store for a cook. I decided to build a gloriette, in an expanded dimension, for the shop. Buck obligingly drew one up in a retangular shape, and set immediately to making the roof. The angle iron pictured here is a stock steel shape. What he does with that angle iron is create a structure that will endure. Structural elements in gardens stand in stark contrast to what is ephemeral. Seasons come and go. Perennials thrive, and fade. As much as a garden is about change, and constant effort, more permanent elements provide comfort. The hedges I planted 15 years ago make me feel like my life as a gardener has meant something; what I did in my garden when I was 45 persists.

The gardens of my twenties and thirties do not exist anymore, but for the trees, and the evergreens. They have persisted in spite of an ownership without a gardener. The structure they provide still organize a property that is not much looked after. I regret that I gave that property up. The structure still in place-a comfort.

Buck builds giant structures, with the help of a bridge crane. This single panel of the gloriette under construction dwarfs him. Plenty of structures both man-made and natural, make me feel the same way. The Grand Canyon, Yosemite, the Taj Mahal, the Washington Monument, the Lake Michigan dunes, the redwood forests-you get the picture. My house has been standing in the spot I now occupy- uninterrupted- since 1930. I like this. I very much like an idea bigger than me, a world view that makes me just a member of a big group-what gardener doesn’t?

This modern version of my square French gloriette is long, and very tall. I imagined that anyone who might place it in their garden would want a home for climbing plants that would get them skyward where they want to be. I imagined they would want to walk underneath, and perhaps sit with a solid roof over their head. The Branch Studio has close to 30 foot tall ceilings-room enough to build a structure within a structure.

The first season I had the gloriette at the shop, we dressed it very formally, with associated tall lattice boxes, and an English lead fountain. Looking good, Buck. I so like how the lower branches of the shop lindens frame the roof of the gloriette. The woody structure and the steel structure overlap in a graceful way.

The second summer, we dressed the gloriette in a far less formal way. Rob’s Italian pot with a bamboo pole plant climber curved out with a wedged wood sphere-this is a great look. This treatment spoke up; we sold the gloriette.

My garden is actually quite handsome in the winter, for its green structure. I know there will be something there, once the snow melts. The gloriette likewise had considerable impact in the winter. The shadow on the wall behind it-so beautiful. Creating structure in a garden asks for everything. All of your thought. All of your effort. All of your history. All of your resources. This spring, gardeners everywhere will be buying beech trees. Trenching for hedges. Setting walkways. Installing fountains. Building gates, pergolas, and benches. Planning to provide structure. Are you ready?

Every year I think about a cottage. Were I ever able to afford one, I would have no garden. I would move in, and do nothing outdoors except go there and look. In the woods, I would encourage the existing trees right up to and onto the foundation. Were I on the water, I would slog through the sand, and appreciate the reeds. Were I in the Smoky Mountains, I would put the smallest structure possible in a trillium field. If I ever had a cottage, what nature had in store for me would be more than enought to make me happy. Lacking a cottage on a wildly beautiful piece of property, my home landscape asks for structure. Steel and green. Sounds good to me.

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About the Author

Deborah Silver is a landscape and garden designer whose firm, Deborah Silver and Co Inc, opened its doors in 1986. She opened Detroit Garden Works, a retail store devoted to fine and unusual garden ornament and specialty plants, in 1996. In 2004, she opened the Branch studio, a subsidiary of the landscape company which designs and manufactures garden ornament in a variety of media. Though her formal education is in English literature and biology, she worked as a fine artist in watercolor and pastel from 1972-1983. A job in a nursery, to help support herself as an artist in the early 80’s evolved into a career in landscape and garden design. Her landscape design and installation projects combine a thorough knowledge of horticulture with an artist’s eye for design. Her three companies provide a wide range of products and services to the serious gardener. She has been writing this journal style blog since April of 2009.